It’s been a while since I saw the Nelms brothers’ Small Town Crime, and it’s also been a while since I wrote up my review for Paste Magazine (which you can now read ’til the cows come home, if that’s your idea of a good time), and I’ve come closer to nailing down what it is about the film that didn’t work for me: It’s never sure whether it’s a comic neo-noir or a straight-up melancholic neo-noir, gracelessly swapping back and forth from one axis to the other. There’s a way to do that kind of thing, but Small Town Crime doesn’t know how.

I’m not sure I can recommend it, but I know I won’t not recommend it; it’s perfectly fine, but absent a consistent tone. If you like John Hawkes, though, you’re going to just go ahead and watch it no matter what I say, aren’t you? You jerks.